When the service was over, I could scarcely make my way through the throng which had meanwhile collected. The sun had come out hot above the Hundwyl Alp, and turned the sides of the valley into slopes of dazzling sheen. Already every table in the inns was filled, every window crowded with heads, the square a dark mass of voters of all ages and classes, lawyers and clergymen being packed together with grooms and brown Alpine herdsmen; and, after the government had been solemnly escorted to its private chamber, four musicians in antique costume announced, with drum and fife, the speedy opening of the Assembly. But first came the singing societies of Herisau, and forced their way into the centre of the throng, where they sang, simply yet grandly, the songs of Appenzell. The people listened with silent satisfaction; not a man seemed to think of applauding.
I took my place in the pastor's study, and inspected the crowd. On the steep slope of the village square and the rising field beyond, more than ten thousand men were gathered, packed as closely as they could stand. The law requires them to appear armed and "respectably dressed." The short swords, very much like our marine cutlasses, which they carried, were intended for show rather than service. Very few wore them: sometimes they were tied up with umbrellas, but generally carried loose in the hand or under the arm. The rich manufacturers of Trogen and Herisau and Teufen had belts and silver-mounted dress-swords. With scarce an exception, every man was habited in black, and wore a stove-pipe hat, but the latter was in most cases brown and battered. Both circumstances were thus explained to me: as the people vote with the uplifted hand, the hat must be of a dark color, as a background, to bring out the hands more distinctly; then, since rain would spoil a good hat (and it rains much at this season), they generally take an old one. I could now understand the advertisements of "secondhand cylinder hats for sale," which I had noticed, the day before, in the newspapers of the Canton. The slope of the hill was such that the hats of the lower ranks concealed the faces of those immediately behind, and the assembly was the darkest and densest I ever beheld. Here and there the top of a scarlet waistcoat flashed out of the cloud with astonishing brilliancy.